Two Falsely Accused Christian Leaders Shot Outside Pakistan Courtroom - July 21, 2010

Suspected Islamic extremists outside a courthouse in Pakistan shot dead two men falsely accused of “blaspheming” Muhammad, the prophet of Islam on July 19.

Five armed, masked men opened fire on  Rev. Rashid Emmanuel, 32, and his 30-year-old brother Sajid Emmanuel, days after handwriting experts on July 14 notified police that signatures on papers denigrating Muhammad did not match those of the accused. Expected to be exonerated soon, the two leaders of United Ministries Pakistan were being led in handcuffs back to jail under police custody when they were shot.

The bodies of the two Christians bore cuts and other signs of having been tortured, including marks on their faces, while the brothers were in police custody. The Emmanuel brothers had been running United Ministries Pakistan for the last two years.

Muslims staged large demonstrations in the past week calling for the death penalty for the brothers, who were arrested when Rashid Emmanuel agreed to meet a mysterious caller at a train station but was instead surrounded by police carrying photocopied papers that denigrated Muhammad – supposedly signed by the pastor and his brother and bearing their telephone numbers.  Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are commonly abused to settle personal scores.  

On July 10 and 11 hundreds of enraged Muslims paraded to the predominantly Christian colony of Dawood Nagar calling for the immediate death of the two Christian brothers. Some chanted, “Hang the blasphemers to death immediately,” sources said, adding that the mob hurled obscenities specifically against Christians.  Islamic extremists led the protests, and most participants were teenagers who pelted the main gate of the Waris Pura Catholic Church with stones, bricks and shards of glass and pounded the gate with bamboo clubs. 

The report by handwriting experts had presented a major setback to the case filed against Emmanuel and his younger brother under Pakistan’s widely condemned blasphemy laws.

As news of the murders reached the community where the brothers had lived, neighbours came out of their homes to vent their anger. Police fired teargas cannons at the protestors who in turn threw stones.

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